Disgrace
by Orange Socks and Polka Dots
Summary: After a not-so-mysterious disappearance, notorious high-society party girl Tilly returns to the city. Unable and unwilling to return to her former life, she concocts a way out, but she'll need the help of unlikely accomplices, including a gaggle of newsies. What follows is a story of scheming, boozing, and even some romance.
1. Two Outta Three Ain't Bad

_Tilly_  
 _August 1, 1990_

It wasn't the screeching halt of the train as it pulled into Grand Central that woke me up from my red-wine haze, but rather an elbow to the rib from my neighbor. If I recalled correctly, he was continuing on to Washington D.C. for some sort of political rally, and wasn't sorry to see me go. I had been on the train since Kennebunkport when he got on in Boston. What started as a pleasant exchange soured around my fourth glass, when he realized that despite my well tailored clothes and Louis Vuitton luggage, I was no lady. The exact memory of what I had done or said that soured the relationship evaded me, but I was too tired to care. I lumbered out of my seat and struggled to get my bag from the overhead compartment. He looked intensely ahead, clearly conflicted between the etiquette and his distaste towards me.

Finally getting the trunk down and in-tow, I spat over my shoulder "Who needs you anyways, you fat old ratbag," and disembarked.

The smell of New York City in the summer hit me in the face and made my stomach turn. You can live in a place for your whole life and never get used to that stink. I rubbed my forehead, vaguely regretting getting so drunk on the train, but I couldn't imagine facing the rest of this day sober.

My parents or someone on their staff was supposed to be here to pick me up, but I didn't recognize any of the faces in the crowd. The train had been routed from Track 8 to Track 26 at the last minute, and I wandered over down the wall, skirting the crowds, keeping an eye out. They wouldn't have forgotten, would they? Sure, I don't think I was anyone in the Harvey house's favorite individual these days, but they wouldn't really leave me, right? The faint prickles of anxiety built as I looked around at the mezzanine, taking note of the ratty street kids careening through the crowds.

"Tilly?" A voice I knew called out from the mass of bodies. "Tilly!" My mother cried again, finding and embracing me. I was not expecting that warm of a reception, but it was a relief. My older brother, Will, trailed behind, a bit more sheepish.

"Look at that beard!" I cried out after my mother and I separated. "You look like, like," I stuttered.

"A man?" He laughed, and pulled me in for a hug. The warm receptions were taking the edge off in a serious way. I guess eight months can really ease the tension.

"How was the trip? How was Maine? Is Aunt Gertie doing well?" My mother asked the questions rapidfire.

"I don't know if Aunt Gertie has ever done well," I joked. I had been staying with batty old Gertie for months, and learned more about the comings and goings of a little old spinster living on a secluded lake in the woods than I had ever cared for. Fine enough that I was probably heading for spinsterhood myself, but I'd be damned if I had to ever chop my own firewood and clean up another dead mouse proffered by a patchy barncat ever again.

My mother frowned at me, clearly disappointed my time in the woods hadn't softened my too-sharp tongue. "Oh, come on," I protested. "You banished me to the woods with a crazy old lady, the least you can do is let me have a bit of fun."

My mother, bless her, did not deserve a problem child like me. She should have had a whole brood of Will's. He was sweet, driven and a rule-follower to a fault. Still, she doted on me and up until last year, forgave my myriad trespasses. Even now, in the warm glow of Grand Central Terminal and a family reunion, she smiled at my barbs, shaking her head in mock horror. Whenever my father was away, as he so often was, she softened and laughed with us, more like a friend than the much-younger, much-lovelier, and oh-so-quiet wife of a railroad tycoon she had to be in public.

"Where is Father anyhow?" I questioned, careening to look for him.

Will and my mother threw furtive glances between each other. I instinctively rolled my eyes, of course he wasn't here. "He really wanted to be here," Will started, but I met his uneasy gaze with a challenge on my face. "Really he did, Tilly."

* * *

 _Skittery  
_ _August 1, 1990_

When I saw her across 42nd Street, walking with her mother and brother, my jaw just about dropped off my head. I hadn't seen her in months, and here she was, walking out of the train station with one of those fancy trunks in tow. I used to see her everywhere, and had spent the last 8 months trying to puzzle out where she had gone. She looked angelic as ever, but somehow different. The way she was carrying herself, somehow more defensive, on alert.

I couldn't believe it, but it was time to switch back to my old selling spot.


	2. Home Again

_Tilly  
_ _August 1, 1990_

Walking back into my family's townhouse that night was surreal. Everything looked the same, but somehow, it felt smaller? Maybe it was all that space I had up in Maine, or the way the lightbulbs cast a somewhat eerie light on the parlor's dark wallpaper and mahogany chair rails. Most of our home looked like a businessman's study, my father's taste and gloom pouring into every shared space. I reflexively scrunched my nose at the austere stillness.

It was unusual that we lived so far downtown. Most of our family and peers had retreated further and further uptown with the recent waves of immigrants. However, my father, the second son, born with something to prove, had stayed resolutely in his family's brownstone townhouse on West 4th Street, clinging to a less crowded, less seedy downtown past. I liked it better down here anyways, with the ragtime clubs and drunks scattered in the alleys. No, it wasn't often that I envied my uptown cousins, but during the sweltering heat of summer, their lush, tree-covered balconies high above the city streets and their ice-cold seltzer water afternoons held a certain appeal.

My mother was pacing the living room, as anxious as she was overheated. Lidia, a young maid followed behind her, a busy-bodied echo. "Ma'am, Mrs. Harvey, please, I picked these up for you," she struggled to get her attention as she proffered a package of Dr. Coderre's Red Pills for Pale and Weak Women. I scoffed, unconvinced Lidia's latest delivery of snake oil, powders, and tablets would "balance her humours" anymore than the last batch.

I walked over to the bar, and fixed myself a whiskey neat. That's how you balance some humours, if you're asking me. My mother's frown intensified and Will closed the cabinet door on the bar that I had left open. Our father, he hated a tumbler out of place or a cabinet left ajar the way most people hated murderers and mosquitos.

"Please, Matilda, your father will be home any minute, don't have that out." She pleaded. I hated how afraid she was of him, how afraid we all supposed to be of the great Joseph Harvey. He was nothing but a bully. With a pang of anger and a wince, I threw back the full glass defiantly. The warmth in my belly was followed quickly by a whooshing head rush. It felt magnificent. I couldn't get my hands on a drop of booze the whole time I was in Maine. Old Aunt Gertie, mean as sin, kept me out of the spirits and any other trouble I could have made. Eight months away from the party sure does make a girl a cheap date. I meant what I said about not going through this evening sober.

* * *

 _Skittery  
_ _August 1, 1990_

I'd lost track of her as soon as they got in a taxi. Traffic was bad, but I didn't stand a chance against one of those new cars on foot. Didn't matter anyways, I was pretty sure I knew where they were headed. I started walking downtown, back to the Newsboys Lodging House.

It had been a rough selling day, and my feet ached. I had grown more than a foot over the last summer and these shoes were living on borrowed time, not unlike my career as a newsie. I thought the growth spurt I had around 15 was the last one, bringing me to a man's 5'9. My pa was tall as anything, 6'4 easily. I figured the malnourishment had caught up then though, and I was relieved. For a newsie, looking young and staying small is the name of the game. This latest vertical burst was a blow. Nobody wants to buy a newspaper from a teenager, let alone a full grown man.

Today's walk, from Duane all the way up to 42nd was proof enough of that. I stopped on corners, walked around cafes, got chased out of a barber shop, and after all that I was still stuck with 14 papers. Waste of fucking money.

But seeing her, wow. I had been glum and dumb all day, but she was a sight for sore eyes. She looked sort of disheveled. She was normally put together, surrounded by a gaggle of other ritzy young knockouts. She was a queen bee if ever there was one, her and the blonde one.

But tonight, her hair was longer and not styled in the ringlet curls I was used to. Her clothes seemed a bit baggier, as if she hadn't been eating right. I walked into the lodging house to a chorus of "Heya, Skits," and "How's it hanging?" I nodded in return, lost in thought about how she still was an angel though, with that fair skin and smooth dark hair.

* * *

 _Tilly  
_ _August 1, 1990_

Dinner was set out, covered with sterling silver cloches, and everyone but my father was seated at the table. The pregnant silence in the room was miserable, made even worse by the clock as it ticked painstakingly. Second after second passed until my father was officially one hour and seventeen minutes late for our normal 8pm supper.

We all jumped when the turn of the front door knob broke the dead air. Lidia rushed to the door, taking my father's hat and briefcase before skirting away. He looked down the hall and saw us all at the table. He looked bewildered for the briefest moment, before his cloudy expression returned. He and I looked eyes across the parlor and dining room.

Unable to meet the intensity of his gaze after a few beats, I broke first, looking to the table. He barked, "Emma, tell Lidia I will be taking my dinner in my study," and headed towards the other side of the house.

My mother looked frantically at me, at Will, at Lidia, who lingered in the doorway between the kitchen and waited for some sort of instruction. Placing her hands firmly on the table, my mother politely excused herself and followed my father to his study.

We couldn't hear all of their conversation, but the volume rose and rose. It only took about three minutes for them to reach their final crescendo, my father booming "It's bad enough you've made me let her back in our house, but I will not celebrate it!"

I inhaled sharply, as if it was a physical pain. In some ways it was, cutting right through the center of my chest. Will reached out and held my hand as I let my head drop.

"Lidia," My mother had come back into the room. "Please, bring Mr Harvey's meal to his study."


	3. West 4th Street

_A.N.:_ _Hi there! I hope you're all enjoying this so far! I'm having a blast writing it, but I always always_ ** _always_** _appreciate any feedback you have. I haven't written anything on this site in a good long while, but I have big plans for this story, so thanks for following along. Ok, I won't keep you any longer! Onwards to the story!_

* * *

 _Skittery  
_ _August 1, 1990_

I hung around the lodging house with the boys, swapping stories about the day and checking in on the little ones. A few of the younger ones looked up to me, an alternative to the happy-go-lucky Cowboy. I didn't mind it so much, a lot of these kids were coming from pretty dark situations and didn't need a cheery role model. The ones that gravitated towards me were the same kids who didn't want to talk about where they were coming from and stared down what was coming next defensively.

The night passed by the way they usually did, a rowdy dinner and kids hanging around, play fighting and chasing each other. The antics never lasted too long though. Ours was a physically demanding job, and in a summer heatwave like this, the sun seemed to zap the energy right out of you. Most of the newsies were asleep in the bunkroom before the streetlamps were all lit. I'm no softie, but it pulled at my heartstrings to see these kids sleep and look like, well, kids.

Racetrack and I split a cigarette on the stoop outside. Race was only a year younger than me, but the lucky wop was short and had a babyface. Even the way he carried himself was youthful. "Rough pickins' out there today," he commented. "This shit was a lot easier back when the country was at war."

I scoffed. "Yeah, cheaper papes, better headlines, and it didn't hurt that we was three years younger." All our conversations these day seemed to come back to this. The balance between experience and age was tilting against us more and more everyday, and we felt it in our pockets.

Stubbing out the cigarette, he sighed. "The fuck do we do next? I ain't spending everyday in no factory."

"Bike messengers?" I proposed, my gaze fixed on a couple of lousy-looking ditchdiggers, heading to their night shifts. They'd be working with dangerous machines, burying gas pipes and building an impossible maze of underground trains through the night. Their bosses realized it was cheaper to hire workers overnight than it was to waste time shutting down the machinery only to start it back up in the morning. The whole thing struck me as inhumane, cooping grown men up underground from eight to eight in either shift.

"We ain't know how to ride bikes, numskull." He spat back, frustrated. His eyes followed the sandhogs on their weary trudge. What a ratty world— you could move unforgiving dirt and rock 500 feet under the surface day in and day out to make your city a better place with trains and running water and gas heating in every home, and you know what they do? Name you and your job after a stinking pig.

I stood, stretching my too-long limbs. "Race, I'd learn to fly if it meant I didn't have to go down there with those sandhogs."

"You and me both, brotha." He rose with me, pausing as I headed down the stairs. "Ya ain't stayin' here tonight?"

Backing down the street, I shrugged and displayed my empty pockets. Truth be told, it was the fourth night in a row I hadn't turned enough profit to shack up under a roof. It wasn't so bad in the spring and fall, but sleeping on the streets in August was just as rotten as December. The cobblestones stayed hot to the touch hours after the sun went down, and the shaded alleys all stunk to high heaven. But tonight at least, I knew exactly where I was headed.

See, I'd stumbled upon the alley behind West 4th Street when I was nine years old, when I first got the boot from my pa's house. The entrance had a gate on it, clearly meant to keep urchins like me out, but my brother taught me how to break open a padlock before I learned to write my own name.

Nine years on the streets teach a kid a few things he needs to know. For one thing, I paid upfront for my locker at the lodging house every month, because if you're sleeping on the street, you're prime pickings for thieves. Best not to have anything on you besides the shirt on your back, but hell, one time a man held me at knifepoint for that too.

Life on the street is a series of gambles. Everyday you decide what you're spending money on and how you're gonna make it back. Papes, food, a roof over your head, the occasional beer to take the edge off; it was all a simple equation. I didn't usually push myself to go fully broke as I did this week, but my poor sales and empty stomach had beat out the lodging fund in the end. Still, I had a plan to get out of the red, but it wasn't going to be pretty.

I tried not to dwell on it, because tonight at least, the pretty girl in the red brick townhouse was back, and as I strolled down the alley, I heard her before I saw her. There she was, perched on her oversized fire escape as she always used to at this time of night, dwarfed by the size of her own acoustic guitar. She piddled out a few notes, something I would later learn were scales.

I sat and listened for a while, setting into the space between the alley wall and a wagon. It wasn't comfortable, but at least it was concealed and protected. Her scales were coming out clumsily, and I heard a frustrated sigh from above. Seeming to give up on that more formal practice, she switched to a trotting melody, unlike anything I had ever heard from her. Where ever she had been, she had been practicing. It was the loveliest song I think I've ever heard.

In that moment, maybe inspired by the music or maybe because I'd watched her for nine years and never said a word, my curiosity got the best of me. "Hey," I called up. A mess of curls popped over the railing to look at me from the second story balcony. Maybe it was the angle, but she looked sweeter, less dolled up than I remembered her usually being. Moving the guitar off her lap and onto the ground, she pointed at her chest and mouthed, "Me?"

"Yeah," I called out again. "Where ya been?"

She stood up from the pillow-covered chair, hastily swishing her skirt to cover her previously exposed calves. Damn, should have waited to get a better look at those. She peered over the balcony looking at me questioningly. Having her full attention on me for the first time ever was such a thrill I didn't realize in the moment how forward I was being.

"Do I know you?" She studied me while I continued to crane my neck up.

"Nah, but, uh, I was -" I started, but she interjected.

"Are you sleeping back there? Are you watching me? Who are you?" She leaned forward and squinted in the dim light before stuffing the guitar back through the window and ducking in herself.

Damn it, scared her off. Worried she would send her father or brother into the alley to chase me off, I quickly moved from my relaxed position on the ground to a crouch, ready to bolt if I needed to. They didn't call me Skittery for no reason after all.


	4. Saint Tilly

_A.N. || Thanks to those who have reviewed or followed the earlier early chapters! A few thoughts from me before we dive in! Some feedback I got on the last chapter related to the swearing and if it was realistic to the era. I had actually asked myself the same thing and did a lot of research regarding slang and cursing during the time. Turns out my most favorite word that starts with an F is an antique and has been used in the modern sense since the mid-ninteenth century! Who knew - anyways my point is I do try to fact-check myself especially on dialect, but love that you guys are holding me accountable to it! My other thought is_ _that I don't know if the narrator switches will come across as spastic. I envisioned them conveying the nerves of the first encounter, but would love to know how it comes off to you lovely readers. I went ahead and added identifiers to each section for clarity's sake either way. Anyways, I hope you life this, let's get these two kids talking, shall we?_

* * *

 _Tilly  
_ _August 1, 1990_

I had gone directly to my bedroom after dinner, defeated by my father's indifference and exhausted by the journey home. The sun had already set, but the air was still warm and stuffy in my room. It didn't seem that anyone had entered the room since I last left it. A western novel sat face-down on my bedside table, unfinished. I couldn't remember the specific plot, but I was sure it wasn't based on reality. In the months since I had last thumbed through it's pages, I had learned that real heroes weren't aloof like the cowboys in those books and that docile damsels-in-distress don't haphazardly find their way into the arms of a strapping cattleman and a happily ever after.

I started to unpack my trunk, but the heat sapped the motivation from me so quickly, I barely made a dent. Instead, I turned to my guitar case, and slipped the acoustic guitar from the plush insides. My mother sent me to piano lessons as far back as I remembered. As a child, my fingers couldn't reach a full octave and with every failed chord, my frustration mounted. On a family trip to Spain a few years ago, I had fallen in love with the street performers' guitars and serenades, and my overly-indulgent mother figured some music was better than none and surprised me with one only weeks later. My father hated it of course, insisting I only play outside to quiet my insufferable din. The guitar and I had passed many lonely nights together here and in Maine.

When I pried the window to the fire escape open, I unsettled a flurry of dust that made me sneeze. I propped my feet up on the railing, letting my skirts flow up past my knees. The relief from the heat and the music of the guitar sent my mind drifting, wondering what was to come in this next chapter in New York, when a voice came up from the alley.

The man— was he a boy?— no, he was a man, had a voice that seemed hoarse with overuse, but came through the still air confidently. He looked up and carried himself like there was familiarity between us. He did look vaguely familiar, I realized as I squinted over to railing. It was a face I couldn't quite recall but his wide, round eyes, wide smile and dark hair poking out of a faded gray cap flashed across the outskirts of my memory.

Curious, I asked a few questions of him, rapid fire, before deciding to confront him in person instead. I darted down the staircase in bare feet, grabbing my keys on the way down. I tiptoed across the kitchen, a room I rarely visited, and opened the backdoor to the alley.

* * *

 _Skittery  
_ _August 1, 1990_

As I saw the doorknob turn, I bolted before it even swung open. After eating next to nothing for the last three days, I was running on adrenaline alone. I was halfway down the alley when I was surprised by the voice calling out, "Hey," followed by a lamer, more dogged, "Wait up!"

* * *

 _Tilly_

He slowed to a stop after I called off and turned to watch me jog up to him. By the time, I caught up, the stitch in my side was more significant than I cared to admit. "Goddamnit, you are fast," I blurted it out.

* * *

 _Skittery_

I couldn't help but smile. After all these years of watching her demure across Greenwich Village, she took the Lord's name in vain with her first words to me. My hand wandered to the back of my neck as a wave of shyness or propriety or whatever swept over me. I started to apologize but she spoke in the same moment. "Who are you?" She asked, not in the accusing way I was most used to people asking me that, but instead with curiosity.

Her furrowed brow and crossed arms projected a confidence that should have been ridiculous coupled with her bare feet and nightgown, but it wasn't. My heart was pounding out of my chest. "Sorry, I, uhm, sorry. I used to sell newspapers over in the square, so yeah, you, uh, you probably saw me there?" My sentence has ended in a question as I fumbled over the words. I tried to calm myself as she examined me skeptically, and finally, with a faint glimmer of recognition, she seemed to accept this as true.

"And you're sleeping back here?" She moved into her next line of question. She had a more intense, commanding energy than I ever would have guessed. She stared me down, unnerving but not unkind. It was easy to see here, up close in this alley, that this was not a girl anymore than she was a woman who often doubted herself.

* * *

 _Tilly_

I watched him stare at his shoes and shuffled his feet, as he stuttered, "Yeah, it's just, you know, I don't normally do it, it's just tonight." His shoulders hunched forward into a defensive position, and I felt myself soften towards him instantly.

"It's alright, I won't tell anyone. Why don't you walk me back?" I invited. He looked up, sheepish and his soulful eyes looked much younger than the body they were connected to. He had a white, collared shirt (or at least the remains of one) tucked into his waistband. His undershirt in desperate need of a wash though it seemed liable to dissolve in soapy water, and it was stretched across a sinewy shoulder muscles. Years of carrying newspapers had made their impact. Despite his broad chest, his face looked strained with hunger. He gawked as I held my arm out, expecting him to take it and come back to my house with me, which he did with uncertainty.

"Do you sleep back here a lot?" I asked, but he only shook his head no. "Honestly," I stopped walking until he looked down at me, instead of straight ahead. I restarted and continued, "Honestly, it's alright, I won't tell anyone. I would tell you to come in and sleep in the house, but truth be told, I'm on thin ice at is, but I can at least get you some food. Are you hungry?" I asked.

* * *

 _Skittery_

The pangs in my stomach beat out my pride when she offered me food and I said yes so quickly that I blushed afterwards, but still she smiled. There was the sweetness I had seen from a distance I thought as she bent down to unlock the fruit cellar behind her backdoor. She opened the doors, taking care not to drop the heavy metal doors. She walked down the stairs and beckoned me to follow.

It took all of my self control to not salivate on the cold cement floor as I looked around the small stone room. The shelves were laiden with melons, strawberries, broccoli and carrots, veal cutlets and bacon, and glass milk bottles. My eyes fell hungrily on the pile of loaves of sourdough bread that looked like the ones my mother used to make. Before I could decline, she'd placed two loaves in my arms along with a jar of honey and a butter dish.

"Let's see, let's see, what has Ida got in here. I'm sorry I can't cook you anything, I don't really know how to," she chirped as she scanned the shelves, before taking a bottle of milk and a handful of peaches as well. "Let me grab you a knife," she started, "Promise you won't use it to stab me?" She said sternly before cracking a lovely smile.

Before I fully formed an answer, she had darted back into the house. I followed her out of the cellar, and it took most of my self control not to dive into the food instantly. I distracted myself by gingerly shutting the cellar doors she seemed to have forgotten about.

She burst back outside with a pillow and sheet in her arms, but no knife. "Here, I got you these, and if you want to sleep in that wagon, that's ours and no one is going to be using it tomorrow until 8am. In this heat, I'm sure you'll be up with the sun anyways, if you don't mind? Again, I do apologize that I can't invite you inside, with this awful, awful heat." She babbled on, filling in the silences I had gapingly created. I trailed behind her as she shaped the pillow and sheet into a nest in the bed of the wagon. "Is this alright?"

Finding my voice, I stammered "Thank you, ma'am. This is, this is so kind. Why are you doing this?"

"Don't call me ma'am. It's Tilly." She stuck her hand out with such bravado, I laughed even through my nervousness.

I took her small but surprisingly calloused hand in mine, and said, "Saint Tilly, it's a joy to meet you."

"I need to go back inside before anyone notices I'm out of bed, but I hope I see you again," she paused, waiting for me to fill in my name.

"Milo." I offered my given name.

* * *

 _Tilly_

"Good night Milo, good luck out here." I turned to the door as he settled into the wagon out of sight. Checking over my shoulder, I all but collided with my father's chest in the kitchen. He grasped my arms hard in his large hands as he pulled me inside. I checked over my shoulder, it didn't seem he has seen Milo. The door slammed behind me and I saw Milo's head pop up above the well of the wagon.

My father shook me, just once, but hard, so I snapped my head and attention back to him. "Things are going to change around here for you, Tilly. You don't get to wander around the alley like a tart in your nightgown. Your la-di-da life is over, do you understand me?" His face was inches from mine and his words dripped with bitterness. I stayed still, imagining I was anywhere else and wishing it would be over. His voice raised, "I said, do you understand me?"

I nodded, and as he loosened his grip, I bolted straight to my bedroom, locking the door behind me. I had left the window open, and walked to close it. I saw the boy ripping the loaves of bread into bite-sized pieces and dipped it in the different jars I had given him. Only then did I realize that I had forgotten the knife I promised. He was eating so fast it seemed like he thought someone was going to take it away. As if he sensed my eyes on him, he turned his gaze up to the window. I waved goodnight silently and shut off the lights.


	5. Fighters

_Skittery_

 _August 2, 1900_

It was past midnight when I saw Tilly in her bedroom window, waving goodnight. I'd had a knot in my stomach since the moment I saw her dragged into the house. Through the door's glass pane, I could see her father angrily shake her. I was sure we had both been caught, but he never came outside. I was sorry that she was left to pay the price for her good deed tonight, but relieved to stay in the wagon with the feast she provided. Once I confirmed she was alright and returned her wave, I drifted to sleep.

As she predicted, I was up with the first signs of sunrise, the city already heating up again. I popped out of the alley quickly and quietly, and started to walk downtown, eating one of the peaches Tilly gifted me. I was dreading the day, but grateful not to face it on an empty stomach. Instead I tried to distract myself, and was easily lost in thought about our first ever meeting, the delight of finally knowing her name, and her knowing mine, and the kindness she had shown me. It seemed like a dream, but I was jolted back to reality as the South Street Seaport came into view.

The docks were already lively, and the traffic of wagons, carts, horses and people was overwhelming. The tall ships bobbed in the East River as men hauled crate after crate on and off of them. The smells of seafood and low tide were strong as I walked past the Fulton Fish Market's white brick exterior. I'd never eaten fish, but if the smell was anything to go off of, I wasn't interested. A line of drunks finishing their night's boozing, waited in line to catch a ferry back to Williamsburg at the Peck Slip. It was always busy down here‒ the ports hosted commercial enterprises, ship-chandlers, workshops, boarding houses, saloons, and brothels. The Brooklyn Bridge presided over the whole scene to the north, a modern marvel and monument to what the city was becoming.

I briefly considered walking onto the docks and looking for a job, a real job. At least this work was outside and above ground. I was just about to turn towards the slips when the memory of the June dock fire in Hoboken that left more than 300 men dead resurfaced in my head. Sure, it had been a great day to sell papers, still under the clouds of smoke coming off the Hudson, but it was brutal. Why is it so hard to find work that won't kill ya in this town?

I carried on, weaving through the crowd, knowing exactly which saloon Uncle Elmer was in. I slumped my shoulder as I entered, not wanting to draw attention to myself among this seedy crowd. It was no use though, as soon as Elmer saw me, he bellowed, "Milo, my boy!" and pulled me into his chest. I wondered with a cynical cringe if he was happy to see a familial connection, or if I just looked like a pile of money in his eyes. My uncle was a broad-chested man in his youth, but years of drinking had caught up with him, especially through the middle. He was smelled like tobacco, stale beer and body odor, and he finished most of his sentences with a question. "Let's retire to my office," he slurred, seemingly still drunk from the night before. He was staving off a hangover with another beer, which sloshed in it's glass mug as he led me to the bar's storage room.

"What have you got for me, Elmer?" I asked, getting down to brass tax. I had bumped into Elmer a few years ago on the street, after years without any contact with him or anyone else in my family really. After he helped himself to one of my newspapers, he had surveyed me up and down, and told me if I ever needed to make a quick buck, I was to come find him at this very bar, the White Horse Tavern. He hadn't given me anymore detail than that, but it wasn't long before I took him up.

Imagine my surprise when I realized just the kind of work he had in mind for me, at all of 16 years old. Elmer was a gambler, placing bets on the underground bare knuckle boxing matches that took place in the back rooms of the seaport's warehouses. It was mostly sailors in the crowd, men who couldn't frequent the ring enough to realize the wool Elmer and his partners pulled over their eyes. "Kid, we can make a lot of money and quick with this you see, if you can sell it," he had explained, talking fast as if that would warm me to the idea. "I just need you to really sell it, you see?"

"Like promote the fight? I can do that, Elmer, sure, it'll be just like hawkin' the newspapers." I had said, over enthusiastic and naive.

"Nah, kid, you're gettin' in the ring, you hear me? I just need you to throw the fight, take the dive, you see?" My face must have blanched, because he slowed down. "Heya, Milo, someday you might be a real contender, but today, your ass goes down in the fifth." Before I could even start to say no, he stuffed a fiver into my chest pocket. "There's another one of these waiting for you when this is all said 'n done, alright."

I spent most of the match dancing around, all but hiding from my much older, much larger opponent. I'll never know how Elmer convinced any sap to bet on me or how he fixed the odds, but when I finally let the guy get a clean hit in the fifth round as I was instructed, I was out like a light. When I came to, Elmer, besides himself with the profit he had turned, was waiting with a shot of whiskey and the five promised dollars. I walked away with a black eye and more money than I'd ever had in my life.

Over the past three years, I'd honed my negotiation skills. Once I realized what Elmer was making off these fixed matches, the $10 I got seemed paltry. I had also learned who was worth losing to and which guys wanted to break my ribs for sport even if they'd already won before stepping in the ring. I'd also learned there was never a day that I would be a real contender, because "a good flopper is harder to find than a winner," as my uncle often reminded me. In the back room on this hot August day, we shook on a $25 beating and he led the way back to the bar to buy me some liquid courage before the fight.

* * *

 _Tilly  
August 2, 1900_

I'd gone to bed with mixed feelings, proud of my good deed and worried about the encounter with my father. I slept well past noon, exhausted from the travel and whiplash re-entry into a life that no longer felt life my own. It was Thursday, so my father was at work and Willy had gone with him. My mother was at some sort of luncheon, and I was alone besides the house staff.

It didn't take long to understand what my father meant about the end of my "la-di-dah life" though. I rolled out of bed, put on a kimono robe, and went to the dining room as I usually did. Only this morning there was no leftover breakfast waiting for me. I walked into the kitchen to find Ida working away at dinner. She smiled at me and gave me the warmest reception I had seen since getting home, but when I asked if there was anything to eat, her face fell.

"Mio cuore, I am sorry," she said in her thick Italian accent. "Your papa, he tell me this morning not to save the food for you. He says we only eat at mealtimes from now on." I nodded, realizing this was likely just the beginning of his promised changes. "But, for today only, my Matilda, we justa don't tell your papa." She said with a wink as she pulled out a plate of food. "Tonight you come for dinner on time, yes?" I nodded and snuck the plate of food back to my room.

Ida was sweet and gentle, and her charity today took me back to the night my world fell apart. When I had confessed my condition to my parents and my father locked me in my room while sorting out what to do next, Ida brought me all the foods that had helped her through her bouts on morning sickness. For me, morning sickness had been all day sickness, and when I was sent away, it was her warm soups and soothing ginger tea and unwavering kindness that I missed most of all. Old Aunt Gertie in Maine didn't have an ounce of culinary skill or compassion in her.

I ate with a cloud over my head in my bed. Had banishing me and taking my life away not enough? What else could he take? I was sure I would find out soon enough. I knew now that I was gearing up for a fight. For men like my father, enough is never enough.


End file.
